I'm a stay-at-home mom who doesn't like the stay-at-home part. So my son and I go out almost every day because if I stay-at-home then I have to do things like cook and clean and organize and other housely things that I'm not good at. Luckily I've got my awesome husband who helps me do all those things I don't like and enables me to do all the things I do like.

Monday, November 19, 2012

With GV I did weekly updates during the pregnancy. But with Pineapple I thought I missed quite a bit of her early pregnancy and then when I found out I hadn't I wasn't really into doing the updates again. I would go back and read the GVs and compare them that way. I've seen newborn summaries on this website so I thought it would be a unique way of chronicling her first year.

This is a summary of the first week of Pineapple's life.

The Beginning

I'm going to write a birth story post for Pineapple but here I'll just mention that it was quick (labor pains started at 1:30am and she was here by 10:49am) and other than not getting the epidural till _way_ late pretty routine. After about an hour of kangaroo care she started rooting and showing some pep so they finally did her vitals, moved us to a Mom & Baby room and she got to try out this nursing thing. She did well although she only did the right side for about 15 minutes because her pediatrician showed up and needed to check her out. Once that was over we switched sides for an additional 10 minutes. In total it was about 25 minutes.

Hospital Stay

We had a new experience with this hospital in that Pineapple was in the room with us almost the whole time we were there. They took her away once to do her vitals and then again when they did the blood/dna collection thing the state does. Paranoid me immediately picked her up and checked to make sure they brought me back the right baby. She looked like the baby they took away.

I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to sleep because no one would be watching Pineapple to make sure she kept breathing. Also this time Kevin stayed overnight with us both nights. After two days we got clean bills of health and were discharged. The did one last weight check (she was down to 7 lbs 3 oz - 6% weight loss) and checked her bilirubin levels and then told us we could go. We waited to complete one last feed and left around 3:30pm.

Fluid

Apparently newborns often have amniotic fluid in their tummy that upsets it so they spit up a lot in the first 48 hours. This was one of the reasons why GV didn't really like nursing in those first couple of days. With Pineapple, she would often spit up before I would even nurse her. Plus she started snorting on her second evening and just sounded clogged up when breathing. The lactation consultant wanted us to have the pediatrician give her a saline nasal spray but our pediatrician didn't want to because she thought it would pass pretty quickly and it did. It was gone by the time we left the hospital.

Big Brother

GV is so sweet with Pineapple. When he came to see us in the hospital later that day he was so excited. Okay mainly he was excited about being in a hospital but he did check her out and give her kisses (first the blanket and then eventually her cheek). Every time she fretted or cried he would want to give her a kiss to make her feel better. And the second night when the nurse came to take her away to do her blood sampling thing he was very concerned that they were taking her away. He almost chased down the nurse to get her back. When we got home on Wednesday he wanted to help carry her into the house. Since being home he has wanted to hold her, kiss her, pet her, point out her eyes/mouth/ears, hold her hand, tickle her, sit right next to her and feed her a bottle. Also at her newborn appt he was concerned that the doctor was poking and prodding her and making her mad and then he was anxious that she was going to fall off the table and pushed her blankets further back onto the table.

Nursing

Oh how I wish this was going better. She doesn't latch that well. It's very shallow I think mainly due to my size (one of my brea.stshields for pumping is 30mm). I've had cracking, soreness, rawness and blood blisters. I had the cracking and soreness with GV but he was a champion nurser (and weight gainer). Pineapple was a fully pound smaller than him at birth and she just doesn't have the same deep pull. Hence the soreness and rawness. It's starting to go away as I adjust to a different nursing style but sometimes the pain makes me want to rip her away. I've been scouring the web to try to find ways to help her and it's been a little better.

I also think I have an oversupply problem as well. I did with GV (his poos went from yellow to dark green when my milk really came in) and so would have to nurse from the same side 2-3 times in a row (offering the one side minimizes foremilk). So I started doing this with Pineapple and by the next morning her poos were closer to the mustard yellow color they were suppose to be. But then when I told Dr. C about doing this she looked at me like a crazy person so I went back doing each side for 15-20 minutes. Her poos went back to dark green. So I've gone back to one side for 2-3 feedings and they're back to normal.

Weight Gain

Pineapple was 7lbs 11oz on Monday (her birth day). By the time we left the hospital on Wednesday she was 7lbs 3 oz. At her newborn appt on Saturday she was still 7lbs 3 oz. So they wanted her to go back for a weight check on Wednesday. Today I measured her using my food scale and she was 7lbs 2oz. I might have had a breakdown. I'm sure this is tied in with her bad latch and the foremilk/hindmilk/oversupply issue. So the other night I checked after her feed and I pumped about 45 ml from the brea.st she had just been nursing on for the past half hour. So today I've decided to pump after her feeding and then give her the bottle. I know I run the risk of nippl.e confusion, nursing strikes and her preferring a bottle but I'm more concerned about her lack of weight gain and I really don't want Dr. C to tell me to supplement with formula.

Jaundice

On our last day at the hospital the nurse came in to check Pineapple's bilirubin levels. I wasn't that concerned because Kevin and I have the same blood type and I had read somewhere before GV that jaundice was caused by different blood types between mother and child. Her readings were okay. Then on Saturday when we went to the pediatrician Dr. C was concerned about Pineapple appearing yellowish. She noted it in her head and chest but her lower half was still normal. I couldn't see the difference but Kevin said he could. She recommended that we put her somewhere near a window so she could get some indirect sunlight. Of course I read all about it and realized that lack of breastmilk (that shallow latch is haunting us again) can cause jaundice. The whites of her eyes are a bit yellow (the only place I can see the yellow) but I'm not sure what else we're suppose to be doing. We're scheduled to go in for a weight check on Wednesday and I'm sure Dr. C is going to want to check her "yellowishness."

Waketime

In the hospital Pineapple was really hard to wake up. A couple of times she would go over the 3 hour mark for her next feeding because I couldn't get her to wake up. But since we've been home she's better at it. We usually change her diaper before her feed and she'll be awake for about the first 10 minutes or so. She does fall asleep most times (it's rare that she doesn't) and I'm starting to notice that she needs the bre.ast in order to fall asleep. In a few weeks I'll be more stringent about her staying awake for her whole feed and falling asleep on her own

Naps

As long as Pineapple falls asleep on the bre.ast she naps great! If not she will want to feed again for a few minutes to help her fall asleep. Those naps are usually more restless and she'll wake earlier for her next feeding. She's really flexible about location of her naps and also the amount of noise GV makes when she's sleeping.

Night Sleep

The hospital room was always comfortably warm during the day and then got pretty cool in the evening. However since she was wearing a hat and was double wrapped in receiving blankets I wasn't concerned about her getting too cold. And then when we got home I tried to mimic the cool room at night (also because I LOVE sleeping in cool/cold rooms) and she was having problems staying asleep while in our room. The first night home we thought it was an issue with the cradle vs. playpen. GV had the same issue. He'd sleep wonderfully in the playpen but then when we would put him in the cradle he would get upset in an instant. As soon as we brought the playpen upstairs and put it in our room (and him in it) he would be fine (and sleep!). So I thought it was something similar with Pineapple. We decided to incline the cradle hoping that would solve it but after another non-sleeping-in-the-cradle night we knew that wasn't it. So then we tried giving up the swaddle (GV rebelled against the swaddle almost as soon as we got home) but that made things worse. Then the night before last I finally gave up around 3 am and after feeding her put her in the playpen in the living room and she slept till her next feed, fell asleep again right away and then slept till 8am. Something clicked that it must be the warm room. So the next night we closed the windows and turned off the ceiling fan. We double swaddled her and sure enough she slept in the cradle in the room waking only when we woke her to change her diaper and feed her.

Conclusion

The shallow latch (due to my size) seems to be causing most of the problems (in my opinion). I'm pretty sure it's what is causing my BFing pain, her lack of weight gain, her thin poops (sometimes green), and jaundice. I've been warned that babies born early can take longer to start gaining weight though.

Schedule

The schedule this week hasn't really been a set schedule. We were feeding her on a 3 hour schedule but then after her naught weight gain, Dr. C wanted us to get closer to 2.5 during the day - she was fine with us going 2 hours if Pineapple was ready. At night we are usually going 3 hours at the latest. I wake up 15 minutes before we hit the 3 hour mark so she's usually on when we hit it.